Hypocrite
by Dukes126plus
Summary: He was a hypocrite. From the episode Mrs. Daisy Hogg. /Warnings: Slash, incest./


I've decided that season four will be next, for no better reason than it comes between the previously posted three and five. And it's the longest one, which makes it a nice contrast to five?

This is from _Mrs. Daisy Hogg_ and stemmed from the fact that the episode is predicated on the idea of keeping the wrong couple from settling down together. (Obviously the relationship starts before the episode. Also not explained here is that the boys use the euphemism 'to go for a ride' to mean having sex. It's a way to get out of the house, as in, "Me and Bo's going for a ride." As to the part about who's is driving when they got for those rides... I'll leave that up to your imagination.)

* * *

He was a hypocrite.

Bo wasn't, but that was only because Bo was too busy raging to recognize hypocrisy when he saw it. Which meant that if he ever calmed down, he would turn out to be a hypocrite, too.

But there was little chance of that, not with the three Duke men standing over the same ditch for two days running, not so much digging as moving the mud around. They were too close together to get any real work done, gabbing and gossiping like a gaggle of church ladies. Hanging Jamie Lee on his name alone. Not that Luke had a problem with that part, Hoggs were dirty creatures.

Jesse was the right one to remind the girl of that little fact. _There ain't never been no one that I asked you to stop seeing. But I just don't think he's right for you._ Luke closed his eyes through the lecture, and their uncle could just as easily have been talking to him.

Time to go, to get away from the sad old man who had just shattered his sugar and spice niece's heart. Because as broken as Jesse looked now, the old-timer didn't have half an idea of how much worse it could be.

Shovels down, shirts on, and a pair of Duke boys off in the General Lee to do their righteous duty in finding the man unsuitable for Daisy. Phone calls to Atlanta, and side trips to the old grits mill all in the name of making sure the wrong two people don't settle into loving each other.

After their second stop at the phone booth in the middle of nowhere specific, it was clear that even if there was something fundamentally wrong in what they were doing, the reasoning behind it was right. Jamie Lee was all Hogg.

"I hate to bring this up." Well, it was one of the things he hated to bring up. There were others, and they'd get to them in a minute. "But you and me gotta talk to Daisy. Come on." Back into the car which would help them get to Daisy's slapping hands all the faster.

"My name first, huh?"

Well, only if his name was _you_, but Luke didn't have time for word games anyway. "Yeah, _you_ do it."

"Me do it?" Seemed only fair, since Bo's objection wasn't on moral grounds, more along the lines of just being afraid of a little woman-wrath.

"Come on," part goad, but mostly reminder that standing on the edge of a dirt road and arguing wasn't exactly going to prevent Daisy's rage, just put it off for a couple of seconds. And in those seconds, she'd only be falling all the harder for that Hogg.

"Hey, you're older." Bo never did know when an argument was over.

"Not much," Luke reminded him. Seemed important, considering where this thing was about to go, to remind him that they were peers now, and wasn't neither one a snot-nosed, irresponsible little kid anymore.

"Enough." Damn it. _Fine_. Let Bo have the last word. Anything – so long as they were in the car and moving again. Luke slammed the stick into first and Bo stomped on the accelerator. All of twelve seconds of silence and then, "Why should I tell her, Luke?"

"Bo," because the argument would never die unless it got mercilessly slaughtered. "Did it ever occur to you that we ain't in any position to tell Daisy who she ought to be with?"

Confused little look stirred itself in with the anxiety and frustration already marring Bo's usually relaxed face.

"Why not? Everyone in all of Hazzard knows that ain't nothing worse than a Duke with a Hogg." Anger was mixed in there, too. Why would Luke even ask such a stupid question? Must be nice to be that sure of yourself.

"Except a Duke with a Duke. Or a Duke boy with a—"

"That ain't the same thing, Luke! Ain't neither of us a schemer," pause there, because even Bo could have an occasional, passing recognition of what he was saying. "Or a real criminal. Ain't neither of us ever bilked a widow or stole from orphans. We ain't planning on hurting each other—"

No, that part was always unplanned, just seemed to happen, like now.

"—You ain't thinking we shouldn't be together, are you Luke?" All the anger was in Bo's right foot, all the hurt was in his voice.

"Slow it down, Bo." The car and the thoughts both. "I ain't thinking nothing but how it don't feel right to be telling Daisy she's with the wrong guy."

"Because you're with the wrong guy?"

Damn it. "Stop the car, Bo."

"Why, Luke, so you can—"

"—just stop!"

"Yes, sir." Bo could never resist a direct command, even if he always complied with a pout.

They didn't have time for this; Daisy's heart was at stake. Except Bo's was in greater danger at the moment. "I ain't," Luke promised him. "Thinking I'm with the wrong guy." A kiss that Bo didn't so much return as tolerate. "Just that if everyone knew, they'd be putting twice as much effort into keeping us apart as they're putting into making sure Daisy and this Jamie Lee don't end up together."

Bo let loose with a big sigh. "They'd be wrong to do that," Bo explained to him. "Because I'm good for you. That guy ain't no good for Daisy." Well. That certainly was one way to look at it; the Bo Duke perspective.

"All right then," Luke reminded him. "You tell her."

Which was enough to get them back on the road, heading in the right direction. But the words between them were anything but easy and nice. The road was too crooked, and that bump hadn't been there yesterday, which was why Bo had to nail it so hard on the passenger side. The General was pulling to the left and didn't have enough power.

"Dang fuel pump," Luke snapped as he pulled himself out of the passenger side window. Boar's Nest already and their own execution ahead. "Every time we want to get somewheres in a hurry."

"Maybe if you didn't take so dang long to fix it in the first place." Right, like all of his free time wasn't taken up with working on Bo's fuel pump.

"Maybe if you'd help me," Luke suggested.

"Help you? I'd help you if I knew anything about mechanics." Oh, the man knew where all the parts went. He'd figured that out after the first time. "All I do is drive." And maybe never again.

But before they could debate who would be in the driver's seat next time they went out for a spin, they had to make it into the Boar's Nest and try to stop what could easily get out of hand. Or already had, because they happened in on a wedding announcement. Watched its progress long enough to hear Daisy's rationalization.

"We love each other."

He caught Bo's eye without entirely meaning to. Yep, his cousin finally understood their hypocrisy. She was just a girl in love, after all. Which didn't stop the boys from interfering, just made them feel guilty for doing so.

And eventually led to Daisy storming out and threats of elopement.

"Luke," Bo just about whined in his ear.

No time for feeling bad. As much as they were hypocrites, they just happened to be right. There was something wrong with this Jamie Lee character, and the Duke boys needed to pin down what it was before threats could turn into reality. Even if they had to go about it sniping all the way.

Which was how they argued their way back at the grits mill, how they wound up getting the better of men armed with heavy boards that snuck up behind them. How they should have emerged victorious, gotten back out of the mill without a scratch, if only Team Bad Guy wasn't armed and didn't unexpectedly double in size.

And there was Jamie Lee, swearing that he never meant to cause Daisy any harm. Which could only mean that she was in great danger.

"Tie them up," Bad Guy Leader snapped. Yeah, good idea, because otherwise Luke was going to rip their heads off for them. And they did it well, hands, feet, gags. Took away the boys' knives and headed out to take Daisy hostage.

Damn it, Bo looked miserable over there, filthy bit of cloth in his mouth, hands tied tight enough he was probably in danger of losing some fingers. Daisy was likely in worse danger, but Luke couldn't see her, not like he could watch Bo struggling to even sit up, sprawled across sacks of grits like he was. So Luke pushed himself to his feet, hopped around uncoordinatedly, and found a surface sharp enough to cut through the ropes that bound his hands. Yanked off his gag, and hopped over to Bo.

"I kind of like you quiet," he commented, pulling Bo's gag off. Struggle to get free forgotten for a moment, Bo stopped to smile at him. While Luke bent to help with the ropes binding his hands, he got a quick kiss somewhere approximating his cheek, then a hurried whisper.

"No you don't."

No time to argue that point, not when they'd both managed to get shed of their ropes by now. First they needed to find Daisy and her captors, get her free from the wrong man.

Which meant another breakneck chase in the General Lee on old dirt roads.

"It's different, Luke."

What? The road, the remnants of Rosco's car back there, the particular mess Daisy had gotten herself into?

"What is?"

"Us. We're different from Daisy and Jamie Lee." Well yeah, but no one had ever disputed that.

"Concentrate on the road, Bo." Now wasn't time for the man to have deep thoughts.

"I am." Affronted. Bo's response to any intelligent suggestion by Luke. "But listen," and only Bo would be so casually skidding the car from the left culvert to the right while trying to have a heart-to-heart. "The difference is, I love you."

Huh. Interesting how those were almost the same words Daisy said back in the Boar's Nest—

"And you would never let anything bad happen to me. So there ain't no good reason anyone should want to keep us apart." Well, other than the fact that, strictly speaking, what they were doing was against the law. "That's one," he announced as he effortlessly rammed one of the cars between them and their cousin, then watched it skid off the road. "Jamie Lee done got Daisy kidnapped. You'd never let that happen to me." So Luke's role in this mostly came down to protecting Bo. Well that was—whoa. They were up on the backside of a truckload of grits now, and Luke was closing his eyes against the fishtailing sway. "And I'm good for you," Bo reminded him. Yeah, his stomach sure did agree with that right now.

"I love you too, you know," Luke informed him, opening his eyes just wide enough to figure out where they were.

"Just see if you still feel that way after this," Bo said, pulling up on the right side of the truck, then propelling them at a forty-five degree angle right in front of it.

Well, if they lived, he'd have to be sure to tell Bo that he'd always felt that way and wasn't nothing going to change that now.


End file.
